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OCCASIONAL PAPERS NO. 14. 



The American Negro Academy 



CHARLES SUMNER 
CENTENARY 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS 
BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE. 



PRICE 15 CENTS. 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 

PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY. 

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OCCASIONAL PAPERS. 



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I — A Review of Hoffman's Race Trails and Tendencies [out of print] 
of the American Negro. KRLLY MILLER. 

2 — The Conservation of Races. 

\V. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS 15 cents 

3 — (a) Civilization the Primal Need of the Race ; (b) 
The .attitude of the American Mind Towards the 
Negro Intellect. ALEXANDER CRUMM ELL. 15 cents 

4 — A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem. 

CHARLES C. COOK. 15 cents 

5 — How the Black St. Domingo Legion Saved the Pa- 
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T. G. STEWARD, U. S. A. 15 cents 

6 — The Disfranchisement of the Negro. 

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by A. H. GRIMKE, CHARLES C. COOK, JOHN 
HOPE, JOHN L. LOVE, KELLY MILLER, and Rev. 
F. J. GRIMKE. 35 cents 

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OCCASIONAL PAPERS NO. 14. 



The American Negro Academy 



CHARLES SUMNER 
CENTENARY 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS 
BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE. 



PRICE 15 CENTS. 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 

PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY, 

19 11 









The American Negro Academy celebrated'the centenary of 
Charles Sumner at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, 
Washington, D. C, Friday evening, January 6, 1911. On 
this occasion the program was as follows: "A Mightv 
Fortress is our God," by the choir of the church ; In- 
vocation, by Rev. L. Z. Johnson, []of Baltimore, Md.; the 
Historical address was next delivered by Mr. Archibald H. 
Grimke, President of the Academy, after which Justice 
Wendell Phillips Stafford made a brief address. A solo, by 
Dr. Charles Sumner Wormley, was sung ; Vice-President 
Kelly Miller delivered an address. A Poem, "Summer," by 
Mrs. F. J. Grimke, was read by Miss Mary P. Burrill. Hon. 
Wm. li. Chandler made the closing address; after which 
the Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung bj' the congrega- 
tion, led by the choir. The benediction was pronounced by 
Rev. W. V. Tuunell. 

The oil painting of Mr. Sumneriwhich~occupied a place in 
front of the pulpit, was loaned by Dr. C. S. W^ormley. 



CHARLES SUMNER. 



T^VERY time a great man comes on the stage of human 
■■-^ affairs, the fable of the Hercules repeats itself. He 
gets a sword from Mercury, a bow from Apollo, a breast- 
plate from Vulcan, a robe from Minerva. Many streams from 
many sources bring to him their united strength. How else 
could the great man be equal to his time and task ? What 
was true of the Greek Demigod was likewise true of Charles 
Sumner. His study of the law for instance formed but a part 
of his great preparation. The science of the law, not its 
practice, excited his enthusiasm. He turned instinctively 
from the technicalities, the tergiversations, the gladiatorial 
display and contention of the legal profession. To him they 
were but the ephemera of the long summertide of jurisprudnce. 
He thirsted for the permanent, the ever living springs and 
principles of the law. Grotius and Pothier and Mansfield 
and Blackstone and Marshall and Story were the shining 
heights to which he aspired. He had neither the tastes nor 
the talents to emulate the Erskines and the Choates of the 
Bar. 

His vast readings in the field of history and literature 
contributed in like manner toward his splendid outfit. So too 
his wide contact and association with the leading spirits of 
the times in Europe and America. All combined to teach 
him to know himself and the universal verities of man and 
society, to distinguish the invisible and enduring substance of 
life from its merely accidental and transient phases and 
phenoniena. 

He was an apt pupil and laid up in his heart the great 
lessons of the Book of Truth. His visit to Europe served to 
complete his apprenticeship. It was like Hercules going in- 
to the Nemean forest to cut himself a club. The same grand 
object lesson he saw everywhere — man, human society, 
human thoughts, human strivings, human wrong, human mis- 
ery. Beneath differences of language, governments, religion, 



4 CHARLES SUMNEU 

race, color, lie discerned the underlxin^ hnniaii principle and 
passion, which make all race.s kin, all men brothers. In 
strange and distant lands he f<^und the human heart with its 
friendships, heroisms, beatitudes, the human intellect with its 
never ending movement and jM'ogress. He found home, a 
common destinj' wherever he found common ideas and aspi- 
rations. And these he had but to look around to behold. He 
felt himself a citizen of an immense over-nation, of a vast 
world of federated hopes and interests. 

When the ])lan for this visit had taken shape in his own 
mind, he consulted his friends. Judge Story, I'rof. Greenleaf, 
and President Quincy, who were not at all well affected to it. 
The first two thought it would wean him from his profession. 
the last one that Europe would spoil him, "send him back 
with a mustache and a walking-stick." Ah ! how little did 
they com]irehend him, how hard to understand that this 
young and indefatigable scholar was only going abroad to cut 
himself a club for the Herculean labors of his ripe manhood. 
He went, saw, and conquered. He saw the promised land 
of international fellowship and peace, and contjuered in his 
own breast the evil genius of war. He came back proud that 
he was an American, prouder still that he was a man. 

The downfall of the Whigs of Massachusetts, brought 
about by a coalition of the Free Soil and the Democratic par- 
ties, resulted after a contest in the Legislature lasting four- 
teen weeks, in the election on April 24, 1S51, of Charles 
Sumner to the Senate of the United States. He was just 
forty, was at the meridian of the intellectual life, in the 
zenith of bodily vigor and manly beauty. He attained the 
splendid position by sheer worth, unrivalled ])ublic service. 
Never has ])olitical office, I venture to assert, been so utterly 
unsolicited. He did not lift a finger, scorned to budge an 
inch, refused to write a line to influence his election. The 
great office came to him by the laws of gravitation and char- 
acter — to him the clean ot'liand, and l)rave of heart It was 
the hour finding the man. 

As Sumner entered the Senate the last of its early giants 
was leaving it forever. Calhoun had alieady passed away. 



CHARLES Sl^MNKR , 5 

Webster was in Millard Fillmore's cabinet, and Clay was es- 
caping in his own picturesque and pathetic words, "scarred 
by spears and worried by wounds to drag his mutilated body 
to his lair and lie down and die." The venerable represent- 
ative of compromise was making his exit from one door of 
the stage, the masterful representative of conscience, his 
entrance through the other. Was the coincidence accident or 
prophecy? Were the bells of destiny at the moment "ringing 
in the valiant man and free, the larger heart, the kindlier 
hand, and ringing out the darkness of the land? Whether 
accident or prophecy, Sumner's entrance into the Senate was 
into the midst of a hostile camp. On either side of the 
chamber enemies confronted him. Southern Whigs and 
southern Democrats hated him. Northern Whigs and north- 
ern democrats likewise hated him. He was without party 
affiliation, well nigh friendless. But thanks to the revolution 
which was working in the free states, he was not wholly so. 
For William H. Seward was already there, and Salmon P. 
Chase, and John P. Hale, and Hannibal Hamlin. Under 
such circumstances it behooved the new champion of freedom 
to take no precipitate step. 

A smaller man, a leader less wise and less fully equipped 
might have blundered at this stage by leaping too hastily 
with his cause into the arena of debate. Sumner did nothing 
of the kind. His self-poise and self-control for nine months 
was simply admirable. "Endurance is the crowning quali- 
ty," says Lowell, "And patience all the passion of great 
hearts." Certainly during those trying months they were 
Sumner's, the endurance and the patience. First the blade, 
he had to familiarize himself with the routine and rules of 
the Senate ; then the ear, he had to study the personnel of 
the Senate— and lastly the full corn in the ear, he had to 
master himself and the situation. Four times he essayed his 
strength on subjects inferior to the one which he was carry- 
ing in his heart as mothers carry their unborn babes. Each 
trial of his parlimentary wings raised him in the estimation 
of friends and foes. His welcome to Kossuth, and his tribute 
to Jlobert Rantoul proved him to be an accomplished orator. 



6 CHARLES SUMNER 

His speech on the Public Laud Question eviuced him besides 
strong in history, argument and law. 

No vehemence of anti-slavery pressure, no shock of 
angry criticism coming from home \vas able to jostle him out 
of his fixed purpose to speak only when he was ready. Wint- 
er had gone, and spring, and still his silence remained. 
Summer too was almost gone before he determined to begin. 
Then like an Auguat storm he burst on the Senate and the 
Country. "Freedom national : slavery sectional" was his 
theme. Like all of Mr. Sumner's speeches, this speech was 
carefully written out and largely memorized. He was de- 
ficient in the qualities of the great debater, was not able us- 
ually and easily to think quickly and effectively on his feet, 
to give and take hard blows within the short range of extem- 
poraneous and hand to hand encounters. Henry Clay and 
John Quincy Adams were pre-eminent in this species of parli- 
amentary combat. Webster and Calhoun were powerful oppo- 
nents whom it was dangerous to meet. Sflmner perhaps never 
experienced that electric sympathy and marvellous interplay 
of emotion and intelligence between himself and an audience 
which made Wendell Phillips the unrivalled monarch of the 
anti-slavery platform. Sumner's was the eloquence of indus- 
try rather than the eloquence of inspiration. What he did 
gave an impression of size, of length, breadth, thoroughness. 
He required space and he re<iuired time. These granted, he 
was tremendous, in many respects the most tremendous ora- 
tor of the Senate and of his times. 

He was tremendous on this occasion. His subject furn- 
ished the keynote and the keystone of his opposition to 
slavery. Garrison, Phillijjs, Frederick Dougla.ss and Theo- 
dore D. Weld appealed against slavery to a common human- 
ity, to the primary moral instincts of mankind in condemna- 
tion of its villanies. The appeal carried them above and 
beyond constitutions and codes to the unwritten and eternal 
right. Sumner appealed against it to the self-evident truths 
of the Declaration of Independence, to the si)irit and letter of 
the Constitution, to the sentiments and hopes of the fathers, 
and to the early history and policy of the Country which they 



CHARLES SUMNER 7 

had founded. All were for freedom and against slavery. 
The reverse of all this, he contended, was error. Public 
opinion- was error-bound, the North was error-bound, so was 
the South, parties and politicians were error-bound. Free- 
dom is the heritage of the nation. Slavery had robbed it of 
its birthright. Slavery must be dispossessed, its extension 
must be resisted. 

As it was in the beginning so it hath ever been, the 
world needs light. The great want of the times was light. 
So Sumner believed. This speech of his was but a repetition 
in a world of wrong of the fiat : "Let there be light." With 
it light did indeed break on the national darkness, such light 
as a thunderbolt flashes, shrivelling and shivering the deep- 
rooted and ramified lie of the century. That speech struck a 
new note and a new hour on the slavery agitation in America. 
Never before in the Government had freedom touched so high 
a level. Heretofore the slave power had been arrogant and 
exacting. A keen observer might have then foreseen that 
freedom would also some day become exacting and aggres- 
sive. For its advancing billows had broken in the resound- 
ing periods and passion of its eloquent champion. 

The manner of the orator on this occasion, a manner 
which marked all of his utterances, was that of a man who 
defers to no one, prefers no one to himself — the imperious 
manner of a man, conscious of the possession of great powers 
and of ability to use them. Such a man the crisis demanded. 
God made one American statesman without moral joints 
when he made Charles Sumner. He could not bend the sup- 
ple hinges of the knee to the slave power, for he had none to 
bend. He must needs stand erect, inflexible, uncompromis- 
ing, an image of Puritan intolerance and Puritan grandeur. 
Against his granite-like character and convictions the inso- 
lence of the South flung itself in vain. 

Orator and oration revealed as in a magic mirror some 
things to the South, which before had seemed to it like 
"Birnam Wood" moving toward "high Dunsinane." But 
lo, a miracle had been performed, the unexpected had sud- 
denly happened. The insurgent moral sense of a mudsill and 



8 CHARLES Sl'MNKR 

shopkeepiiig North had at last found \(jice and vent. With 
what awakening terror must the South have listened to this 
formidable prophecy of Sumner: "The mo\cment against 
slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Kven now it is gather- 
ing its forces to be confe.ssed evervwhere. It may not vet be 
felt in the high places of office and power ; but all who can 
put their ears humbly to the ground will hear and comprehend 
its incessant and advancing tread." 

This awakening terror of the South was not allayed by 
the admission of California and the mutinous execution of the 
Fugitive Slave T.aw. The temper of that section the while 
grew in conse([uence more unreasonable and arrogant. Worst- 
ed as the South clearly was in the contest with her rival for 
political supremacy, she refused nevertheless to modify her 
pretentions to political supremacy. And as she had no long" 
er anything to lose by giving- loose reins to her arrogance and 
pretentions, her words and actions took on thenceforth an 
ominously defiant and reckless character. If finally driven 
to the wall there lay within easy reach, she calculated, seces- 
sion and a southern confederacy. 

The national situation was still further complicated l)y 
the disintegration and chaos into which the two old parties 
were then tumbling, and by the fierce rivalries and jealousies 
within them of party leaders at the North. All the conditioiis 
seemed to favor southern aggression — the commission of 
some monstrous crime against liberty. Webster had gone to 
his long account, dishonored and broken-hearted. The last 
of the three sujjreme voices of the early senatorial splendor of 
the republic was now hushed in the grave. As tho.se master 
lights, Calhoun, Webster and Clay, vanished one after anoth- 
er into the void, darkness and uproar increased apace. 

About this time the most striking and sinister figure in 
American Party history loomed into greatness. Stephen A. 
Douglas was a curious and grim example of the survival of 
viking instincts in the moiU-rn office seeker. On the sea of 
jjolitics he was a veritable water-dog, daring, unscrui)ulous, 
lawless, transcendently able, and transcendently heartless, 
'i'he sight of the presidency moved him in much the samtj 



CHARLES SUMNER 9 

way as did the sight of the elTete and wealthy lands ol' Latin 
Europe moved his roving, robber prototypes eleven centuries 
before. It stirred every drop of his sea-wolf's blood to get 
possession of it. 

His "Squatter Sovereignty Dogma" was in truth a pi- 
rate boat which carried consternation to many an anxious com- 
munity in the free states. 

It was with such anally that the slave power undertook 
the task of repealing the Missouri Compromise. The organ- 
ization of the northern section of the Louisiana Purchase into 
the territories of Kansas and Nebraska was made the occa- 
sion for abolishing the old slave line of 1820. That line had 
devoted all of that land to freedom. Calhoun, bold as he 
was, had never ventured to counsel the abrogation of that 
solemn covenant between the sections. The South, to his 
way of thinking, had got the worst of the bargain, had in fact 
been overreached, but a bargain was a bargain, and therefore 
he concluded that the slave states should stand by their 
plighted faith until released by the free. That which the 
great Nullifier hesitated to counsel, his disciples and succes- 
sors dared to do. The execution of the plot was adroitly 
committed to the hands of Douglas, under whose leadership 
the movement for repeal would appear to have been started 
by the section which was to be injured by it. Thus the 
South would be rescued from the moral and political conse- 
quences of an act of bad faith in dealing with her sister 
section. 

The Repeal fought its way thiongh Congress during tour 
stormy months of the winter and spring ot 1S54. Blows fell 
upon it and its authors fast and furious from Seward, Chase, 
Wade. Fessenden, Giddings and GenitSniiih. But Sumner 
was the colossus of the hour, the fiaming swoid of his section. 
It was he who swung its po.ulerous broadsword and smote 
plot and plotters with the terrible strength of the northern 
giant. Such a speech, as was his "Landmarks of Freedom," 
only great national crises breed. It was a volcanic upheaval 
of the moral throes of the times, a lavatide of argument, ap- 
peal, history and ehxiuence. The august rights and wrath of 



lo CHARLES SUMNER 

the northern people flashed and thundered along its rolling 

jieriods. 

"Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself," is the cry 
of humanity ringing forever in the soul of the reformer. He 
must needs bestir himself in obedience to the high behest. 
The performance of this task is the special mission of great 
men. It was without doubt Sumner's, for he stood for the 
manhood of the North, of the slave, of the Republic. For 
this he toiled strenuously all his life long. It shines in every 
paragraph of that memorable speech, and of the shorter one 
in defence of the New England clergy made at midnight on 
that l)lack Thursday of May, which closed the bitter struggle 
and consummated the demolition of the old slave wall. 

From that time Sumner's position became one of con- 
stantly increasing peril. Insulted, denounced, menaced by 
mob violence, his life was every day in jeopardy. Hut he did 
not flinch nor falter. Freedom was his master, humanity his 
guide. He climbed the hazardous steps to duty, heedless of 
the dangers in his way. 

His collisions with the slave leaders and their northern 
allies grew thenceforth more frequent and ever fiercer. 
Kvery motion of his to gain the floor, he found anticipated 
and oppo.seed by a tyrannous combination and majority, bent 
on depriving him of his rights as a senator. \Vherever he 
turned he faced growing intolerance and malignity. It was 
only by exercising the utmost vigilance and firmness 
that he was able to snatch for himself and cause a hearing. 
Under these circumstances all the powers of the man became 
braced, eager, alert, determined. It was many against one, 
but that one was a host in himself, aroused as he then was, 
not only by the grandeur of his cause, but also by a keen 
sense of i)ersonal indignity and persecution. Whoever else 
did, he would not submit to senatorial insult and bondage. 
His rising temper began to thrust like a rapier. Scorn he 
matched with scorn, and pride he pitted ag^Iinst jiride. Asa 
regiment bristles with bayonets, so bristled his speech with 
facts, which thrust through and through with the merciless 
truth of history the arrogance and jiretentions of the South. 



CHARLES SUMNKR li 

His sarcasm was terrific. His invective had tlie ferocity of 
a panther. He upon whom it sprang had his quivering flesh 
torn away. It was not in human nature to sufter such lacer- 
ations of the feelings and forgive and forget the author of 
them. The slave leaders did not forgive Sumner, nor for- 
get their scars. 

Meanwhile the plot of the national tragedy fast thickened, 
for as the Government at Washington had adopted the "Squat- 
ter Sovereignty" scheme of Douglas in settling the territo- 
rial question, the two sections precipitated their forces at 
once upon the debatable land. It was then for the first time 
that the two antagonistic social systems of the union came 
into physical collision. Showers of bullets and blood dashed 
from the darkening sky. Civil War had actually begun. 
The history of Kansas during this period is a history of fraud, 
violence and anarchy. Popular sovereignty, private rights 
and public order were all outraged by the Border Ruffians of 
Missouri and the slave power. 

At this juncture Sumner delivered in the senate a phi- 
lipic, the like of which had not before been heard in that 
chamber. His "Crime against Kansas" was another one of his 
speeches crisis born. It was an outbreak of the explosive 
forces of the long gathering tempest, its sharp and terrible 
lightning flash and stroke, the sulphurous vent of the hot 
surcharged heart of the North. More than one slave champ- 
ion encountered during its delivery his attention, and must 
have recoiled from the panther-like glare and spring of his in- 
vective and_^rejoinder. Senator Arthur'?. Butler of South 
Carolina was, on the whole, the most fiercely assaulted 
of the senatorial group. His punishment was indeed mer- 
ciless. Impartial history must, however, under all the cir- 
cumstances of the case, I think, adjudge it just. In that 
memorable struggle the Massachusetts chieftain used upon 
his foes not only his tomakawk, but also his scalping knife. 
No quarter he had received from the slave power, and none 
now he gave to it or its representatives. 

Such a terrible arraignment of the slave power in general, 
and of Senator Butler in particular demanded an answer. To 



12 CHARLES ST'MNER 

It, that power liael but one replw \iolcnce, llie reply which 
wrong ever makes to right. And this Preston S. Brooks made 
two days after its delivery. Mr. Sumner pursuatit to an earlv 
adjournment of the Senate on an announcement of the death 
of a meml^er of the lower house, was busy at his desk i)repar- 
ing his afternoon mail, when Brooks, (who by the way was a 
ue])hew of Senator Butler) stepping in front of him and with 
hardly a word of warning, struck him on the head a succes- 
sion of quick murderous blows with a stout walking-stick. 
Da/.ed and stunned, but impelled by the instinct of self-defense, 
Mr. Sumner tried to rise to grap])le with his assailant, but the 
seat under which his long legs were thrust held him prisoner. 
Although fastened to the floor with iron clamps, it was finall\' 
wrenched up by the agoni/.ed struggles of Sumner. Thus re- 
leased, his body bent forward and arms thrown up to protect 
his bleeding head, he staggered toward Brooks who continued 
the shower of blows until his victim fell fainting to the no(jr. 
Not then did the southern brute stay his hand, but struck 
again and again the prostrate and now insensible form of Mr. 
Sumner with a fragment of the stick. 

In the midst of this frightful .scene where were the over- 
turned desk, pieces of the broken .stick, scattered writing 
materials, and the bloodstained car]K-t, lav that noble figure 
unconscious alike of pain and of his enemies, and of the aw- 
ful horror of it all. There he lay in the senate chamber of 
the Re])ublic with l)lood on his head and face ami clothing, 
with blood, now martxr's bhxxl, running from many wounds 
and sinking into the floor. Ohl the i)it\- of it, Init the sacri- 
ficial grandeur of it also I He was presently succoreii by 
Henry Wilson and other faithful friends, and borne to a sola 
in the lobby of the Senate where doctors dressed his wounds, 
and thence l:e was carrie<l to his lodgings. Theie suffering, 
bewildered, almost speechless, he spent the first night of the 
tragedy and of his long yeais of martyrdom. 

<)n the wings of that traged\- Sumner rose to an enduring 
])lace in Ihe jjanllieon of the nation. His life became thence- 
forth .associated with the Weal of Slates, his fate with the ft)r- 



CHARLEvS vSUMNER i^ 



tunes of a great people. The toast of the A\itocrat ot the 
Breakfast Table at the banquet of the Massachusetts Medical 
Society about this time gave eloquent expression to the gen- 
eral concern : "To the Surgeons of the City of Washington : 
God grant them wisdom! for they are dressing the wounds of 
a mighty empire, and of uncounted generations." The mad 
act of Brooks had done for Sumner what similar madness had 
done for similar victims — magnified immensely his influence, 
secured forever his position as an imposing, historic figure. 
Ah! it was indeed the old, wonderful story. The miracle of 
miracles was again performed, the good man's blood had 
turned into the seed-corn of his cause. 

No need to retell the tale of his long and harrowing fight 
for health. There were two sprains of the spine, besides the 
terrible blows on the head. From land to land, during four 
years, he passed, pursuing "the phantom of a cup that comes 
and goes." As a last resort he submitted himself to the treat- 
ment by fire, to the torture of the Moxa, which Dr. Brown- 
Sequard pronounced "the greatest suffering that can be in 
flicted on mortal nian.^' His empty chair, Massachusett-s, 
great mother and nurse of heroes (God give her ever in her 
need and the Country's such another son) would not fill. 
Vacant it glared, voicing as no lips could utter her elo([uenl 
protest and her mighty purpose. 

The tide of history and the tide of mortality were running 
meanwhile their inexorable courses. Two powerful parties, 
the Whig and the American, had foundered on the tumultu- 
ous sea of public opinion. A new political organization, the 
Republican, had arisen instead to resist the extension of slave- 
ry to national territory. Death too was busy. Preston S. 
Brooks and his uncle had vanished in the grave. Harper's 
Ferry had become freedom's Balaklava, and John Brown had 
mounted from a Virginia gallows to the throne and the glory of 
martyrdom. Sumner was not able to take up the task which 
his hands had dropped until the troublous winter of 1859-60. 
Those four fateful years of suffering had not abated his hatred 
of slavery. That hatred and the Puritanical sternness and 



14 CHARLES SUMNER 

intolerance oi" his nature liad on the contrary intensified his 
temper and purpose as an anti-slavery leader. He was then 
in personal appearance the incarnation of iron will and iron 
convictions. His body nobly planned and proportioned was 
a fit servant of his lofty and indomitable mind. All the 
strength and resources of both he needed in the national em- 
ergency which then confronted the Republic. For the su- 
preme crisis of a seventy years' conflict of ideas and institu- 
tions was at hand. At every door and on every brow sat 
gloom and apprehension. 

There was light on but one difficult way, the way 
of national righteousness. In this storm-path of the 
Nation Sumner planted his feet. Thick fogs were before and 
above him, a wild chaotic sea of doubt and dread raged around 
him, but he hesitated not, neither swerved to the right 
hand nor to the left. Straight on and up he moved, calling 
through the rising tumult and the fast falling darkness to his 
groping and terrified countrymen to follow him. 

Nothing is settled which is not settled right, I hear him say- 
ing, high above the breaking storm of civil strife. Peace, ever 
enduring peace, comes only to that nation which puts down sin^ 
and lifts up righteousness. Kansas he found still denied admis- 
sion to the Union, he presented her case and arraigned her 
oppressors, in one of the great speeches of his life. Where- 
ever liberty needed him, there he was, the knight without 
fear or reproach. From platform and press and Senate he 
flung himself, during those final decisive months of i860, into 
the thickest of the battle. No uncertainty vexed his mind 
and conscience. Whatever other questions admitted of con- 
ciliatory treatment he was sure that the slavery (juestion ad- 
mitted of none. With him there was to be no further com- 
promise with the evil, not an inch more of concessions would 
he grant it. Here he took his stand, and from it nothing and 
no one were able to budge him. If disunion and civil war 
were crouching in the rough way of the Nation's duty, the 
Republic was not to turn aside into easier ways to avoid them. 
It should on the contrary, regardless of consequences, seek to 
re-establish itself in justice and liberty. * 



CHARLBS SUMNKR 15 

He recognized, however, amid the excitement of the 
times with all his old-time clarity of vision the constitutional 
limitations of the Reform. He did not propose at this stage 
of the struggle to touch slavery within the states, because 
Congress had not the power. To the utmost verge of the 
Constitution be pushed his uncompromising opposition to 
it. Here he drew up his forces, ready to cross the Rubicon 
of the slave-power whenever justificatory cause arose. Such 
he considered to be the uprising of the South in rebellion. 
Rebellion with him cancelled the slave covenants of the Con- 
stitution and discharged the North from their further ob- 
servance. 

He was at last untrammelled by constitutional conditions 
and limitations, was free to carry the War into Africa. "Car- 
thago est delenda" was thenceforth ever on his lips. Mr. 
Lincoln and the Republican party started out to save the Union 
withslavery. It is the rage now, I know, to extol hismarvel- 
lous sagacity and statesmanship. And I too will join in the 
panegyric of his great qualities. But here he was not infallible. 
For when he issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the 
South too was weighing the military necessity of a similar 
measure. Justice was Sumner's .solitary expedient, right his 
unfailing sagacity. Of no other American statesman can 
they be so unqualifiedly affirmed. They are indeed his peculiar 
distinction and glory. Here he is the transcendent figure in 
our political history. And yet, he was no fanatical visionary, 
Utopian dreamer, but a practical moralist in the domain of 
politics. When president and party turned a deaf ear to him 
and his simple straightforward remedy to try their own, he 
did not break with them. On the contrary foot to foot and 
shoulder to shoulder he kept step with both as far as they 
'went. Where they halted he would not stop. Stuck as the 
wheels of State were> during those dreadful years in the mire 
and clay of political expediency and pro-slavery Huukerism, 
he appealed confidently to that large, unknown quantity of 
courage and righteousness, dormant in the North, to set the 
balked wheels again moving. 



i6 CHARLKS SUMNER 

An ardent Peace advocate, he nevertlieless threw liiniself 
enthusiastically into the uprisins^ against the Disunionist. 
Xot to fight then he saw was but to jirovoke more horrible 
woes, to prevent which the man of Peace j^reached war, un- 
relenting war. He was Anglo-Saxon enough, Puritan and 
student of history enough to be sensible of the efficacy of 
blood and iron, at times, in the cure of intolerable ills. But 
liis was no vulgar war for the mere ascetidancy of his section 
in the Union. It was rather a holy crusade against wrong 
and for the supremacy and perpetuity of liberty in America. 

As elephants shy and shuffle before a bridge which they 
are about to cross, so performed our saviors before emanci- 
pation and colored troops. Emancipation and colored troops 
were the powder and ball which Providence had laid by the 
side of our guns. Sumner urged incessantly upon the admin- 
istration the necessity of pouring this providential l^roadside 
into the ranks of the foe. This was done at last and treason 
staggered and fell mortally hurt. 

The gravest problem remained, howexer, to be solved. 
The riddle of the southern sphinx awaited its Oedipus. How 
ought local self-government to be reconstituted in the old 
slave states was the momentous question to be answered at 
close of the war. Sumner had his answer, others had their 
answer. His answer he framed on the simple basis of 
right. No party considerations entered into his straightfor- 
ward purpose. He was not careful to enfold within it any 
scheme or suggestion looking to the ascendancy of his section. 
It was freedom alone that he was solicitious of establishing, 
the supremacy of democratic ideas and institutions in the 
new-born nation. He desired the ascendancy of his section 
and party so far only as they were the real custodians o 
Jiational justice and progress, (iod knows whether his plan 
was better than tlie plans of others except in simpleness and 
l)urity of aim. Lincoln had hisplan, John.son his, Congress its 
(Avn. Sumner's had what appears to me nii^ht have evinced 
it, on trial, of superior virtue and wisdom, namely, the 
clement of time, indefinite time as a factor in the work of re- 
construction. But it is impossible to si)eak jiositively on this 



CriARLES SUMNltR 17 

point. His scheme was rejected and all discussion of it l)e- 
comes therefore nugator3^ 

Negro citizenship and suffrage he championed not to save 
the political power of his party and section, but as a duty 
which the republic owes to the weakest of her children because 
of their weakness. Equality before the law is, in fact, the 
only adequate defense which poverty has against property in 
modern civilized society. Well did Mr. Sumner understand 
this truth, that wrong has a fatal gift of metamorphosis, its 
ability to change its form without losing its identity. It had 
shed in America, Negro slavery. It would reappear as 
Negro serfdom unless placed in the way of utter extinction. 
He had the sagacity to perceive that equality before the law 
could alone avert a revival under a new name of the old slave 
power and system. He toiled therefore in the Senate and on 
the platform to make equality before the law the master prin- 
ciple in the social and political life of America. 

As his years increased so increased his passion for justice 
and equality. He was never weary of sowing and resowing 
in the laws of the Nation and in the mind of the people the 
grand ideas of the Declaration of Independence. This entire 
absorption in one loftly purpose lent to him a singular aloof- 
ness and isolation in the politics of the times. He was not 
like other political leaders. He laid stress on the ethical side 
of statesmanship, they emphasized the economical. He was 
chiefly concerned about the rights of persons, they about the 
rights of property. Such a great soul could not be a partisan. 
Party with him was an instrument to advance his ideas, and 
nothing more. x\s long as it proved efficient, subservient to 
right, he gave to it his hearty support. 

It was therefore a foregone conclusion that Sumner and 
his party should quarrel. The military and personal charac- 
tor of General Grant's first administration furnished the casus 
belli. These great men had no reciprocal appreciation the 
one for the other. Sumner was honest in the belief that 
Grant knew nothing but war, and quite as honest was Grant 
in supposing that Sumner had done nothing but talk. The 
breach, in consequence, widened between the latter and his 



iS CHARLES SUMNER 

pari)- for it naluially enough espoused the cause of the Pres- 
ident. 

Sumner's im])osing figure grew more distant and com- 
panionless. Domestic unhappiness" too was eating into his 
proud heart. His health began to decline. The immedica- 
ble injury which his constitution had sustained from the as- 
sault of Brooks developed fresh complications, and renewed aU 
of the old bodily suffering. A temper always austere and im- 
perious was not mended by this harassing combination of ills. 
Alone in this extremity he trod the wine-press of sickness and 
sorrow. He no longer had a party to lean on, nor a state to 
support him, nor did any woman's hand minister to him in 
this hour of his need. He had left to him nothing but his 
cause, and to this he clung with the pathos and passion of a 
grand and solitary spirit. Presently the grass-hopper became 
a burden, and the once stalwart limbs could not carry him 
with their old time ease and regularity to his seat in the 
Senate, which accordingly became frequently vacant. An 
overpowering weariness and weakness was settling onthedv- 
ing statesman. Still his thoughts hovered anxiously about 
their one paramount object. I^ike as the eyes of a mother 
about to die are turned and fixed on a darling child, so turn- 
ed his thoughts to the struggling- cause of human brother- 
hood and equality, l-or it the great soul would toil yet a 
little longer. But it was otherwise decried, and the illustri- 
ous Defender of Humanity passed away in this city March 
I I, 1874, leaving to his country and to mankind, as a glori- 
ous heritage, the mortal grandeur of his character and 
achievements. 



CHARLES SUMNER. 

[On seeing some pictures of the interior of his home.] 



Only the casket left, the jewel gone 
Whose noble presence filled these stately rooms, 
And made this spot a shrine where pilgrims came — 
Stranger and friend — to bend in reverence 
Before the great, pure soul that knew no guile ; 
To listen to the wise and gracious words 
That fell from lips whose rare, exquisite smile 
Gave tender beauty to the grand grave face. 

Upon these pictured walls we see thy peers, — 
Poet and saint and sage, painter and king, — 
A glorious band ; — they shine upon us still ; 
Still gleam in marble the enchanting forms 
Whereon thy artist eye delighted dwelt ; 
Thy fav'rite Psyche droops her matchless face. 
Listening, methinks, for the beloved voice 
Which nevermore on earth shall sound her praise. 

All these remain, — the beautiful, the brave. 
The gifted, silent ones; but thou art gone ! 
Fair is the world that smiles upon us now ; 
Blue are the skies of June, balmy the air 
That soothes with touches soft the weary brow ; 
And perfect days glide into perfect nights,— 
Moonlit and calm ; but still our grateful hearts 
Are sad, and faint with fear,— for thou art gone ! 

Oh friend beloved, with longing, tear-filled eyes 
We look up, up to the unclouded blue. 
And seek in vain some answering sign from thee. 
Look down upon us, guide and cheer us still 
Frbm the serene height where thou dwellest now ; 
Dark is the way without the beacon light 
Which long and steadfastly thy hand upheld. 
Oh, nerve with courage new the stricken hearts 
Whose dearest hopes seem lost in losing thee ! 

Chari,ottk Forten Grimke. 



THE AMERICAN NEGRO ACADEMY. 

Organized Inarch 3th, 1897. 

Rev. ALEXANDER CRUMMELL, Founder. 



OBJECTS: 

The Promotion of Literatqre, vScience axd Art, 

The CUI.TURE of a Form of Inteli^ectual Taste, 

The Fostering of Higher Education, 

The Publication of Scholarly Works, 

The Defense of the Negro Against Vicious Assaults. 



PRESIDENT 

ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE. 

VICE-PRESIDENTS, 

Kelly Miller, J. R. Clifford 

Rev. J. Albert Johnson Rev. Matthew Anderson 

TREASURER, 

REV. F. J. GRIMKE. 

RECORDING SECRETARY, 

ARTHUR U. CRAIG. 

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 

John W, Cromwell, 
1815 13th St. N. W. Washington, D. C. 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 

KELLY MILLER, EDWARD C. WILLIAMS, J. E. MOORLAND, 
REV. F. J. GRIMKE, EX-OFFicio, J. W. CROMWELL, ex-officio 



R. L. Pendleton, Printer. 609 F St., N. W. 



W46 




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